Games based Idents

At first, I though it was meant as a television ident, but with a gaming theme. But I realise this does include logos from gaming companies.

 

The Only TV Ident I did find relevant to gaming was from this channel.

Fox Kids (2001) – the fast-paced CGI graphics used in this really made the ident look like a platform game, but viewed as a first person shooter. Its variety of colour, imagery, and effects really grabbed the attention for kids, and gamers if it was used for a gaming channel.  While it has a lot of lighting and texturing effects in the animation, there isn’t any font or typefacing on this ident.

Sega (1992) – Normally you don’t see a trademark character appear on the logo intro, but this is probably a well-known character ident in game history. Sonic the Hedgehog matches well with Sega’s blue logo, and speeding from one side to another give a really good effect for the logo to fade in, like it came from the dust. The jingle is the same tune that the audience can instantly remember, and they would also tell it’s a game made by Sega by the appearance of Sonic, even if it’s not a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Nintendo GameCube (2002) – The 3D animation in this is quite clever, as the smaller cub walks around the screen, making a path along the way, the form of a bigger cube. The path forms into a letter, which stands for the word “GameCube”. The purple logo and typeface font is cleverly designed, which would clearly give its target audience the comfort that they are playing from an official console.

Television Idents (60s and 70s)

CBS color ident (1960) - The ident in this shows the letters falling and shaking on the spot, until the Eye goes through them, and changes their color. While the animation is pretty basic, it has a nice touch of RGB colors for CBS, and a nice gradient color for the trademark logo. it's target audience is possibly suitable for the whole family, and show a big improvement on how color changed television after the 50s. the speed of the ident is quite steady, but the letters falling and shaking into place are faster at the beginning. the font has quite a thin typeface, but very easy to read, but there isn't my imagery that would grab viewer's attention.


http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=cbs_color_ident.mp4

 

BBC One (1969) - This ident has a nice mirror effect on the globe. it almost looks like ink being pressed on a rolling piece of paper. the ident itself has a lack of color, apart from basically blue and black, and the slow repetitive animation might be boring to younger viewers, though partially a family audience is what the BBC aims at. the basic typeface next to the channel logo might also be a lack of interest, even if it informs the viewer that the channel is in color.


http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=bbc1globe1969.rm

LWT (1971) – This simple 2d animation has an interesting form of movement. A ribbon, coloured in stripes, moves down from the screen, make a right turn, and spells the letters of the name of channel. This was popular enough to be satirically spoofed later that year.  It has an interesting use of colour, font and imagery that would suit the family audience, and while at a slow speed, everything comes out clear as to what they are watching.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=lwt1971-river.rm

Television Idents (80s)

Anglia (1980) – This ident was a genuine eye-catcher. At first, I couldn’t tell whether the flag was real, bit by bit at first until it formed into one flag, or a realistic 2D animation. But it’s definitely constructed from pieces of velvet cloth, and later a square shaped cloth symbolising the logo for Anglia, waving like a flag. The ident runs at a normal paced speed, but the colour and imagery of the background and flag would grab the audience attention it’s targeting at.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=angliatv_1980s.rm

Channel 4 (1988) - This ident gives an interesting 3D effect, when it spins across the screen, slowly nearing nearing­ towards you. There is a lot more basic colour, and has added a little lighting effects near the top of the logo.  This is a nice touch to appeal to its average everyday audience, and any new viewers watching their station.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=channel4_ident_1988.rm

MTV (1989) – The surreal animation in this ident could easily mistake this channel being for children, where as the channel itself would mainly aim to an older audience.  Its very fast, but doesn’t point out that’s a music channel, apart from the TV sets and records. The colour is a mix of almost everything, while the imagery has the surreal and humorous look. One thing I also discovered, however, was this being spoofed later in 1993, for an animated show called “Rocko’s Modern Life”. This could be because Nickelodeon, the company behind the show, is owned by MTV.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/dsplus/m.php?p=mtv_tribal_1989.rm

A Scene from the introduction to  “Rocko’s Modern Life”.

Note the similarity between this and the ident above.

Television Idents (2000-present)

Boomerang - Old Logo before it was rebranded in 2004

Boomerang (2004) - This idents are actually a favourite of mine! These came out as part of rebranding the logo. What i like about these are the nostalgic imagery used from the characters in their programming, which sets the mood in each ident a feeling of humor. the audience more likely to watch these network back then would've been all ages, especially anyone who remembers these characters in their childhood. the colour of the logo, with the image effects, gives it a 3D look before the line flattens to draw characters in the next part of the animation. there's a huge variety of colour used, particularly the main textured background at the start and end of each ident. the tempo varies of how fast the gag runs for. sometimes it can last between 30 seconds or up to a minute. while there isn't really any particular font for this, the logo is almost in it's own original font.





Disney Cinemagic (2007) - The CGI animation in this ident shows a lot of shaping and transformation of every object on stage. it's aimed at an audience of people who enjoy watching films on television. the mood set on the ident starts you off being puzzled as to what this long little spark is doing, and why everything is changing all of the sudden. until, near the end, you find out a scene is displayed, and everything shown is related to a movie set. For example, in this Route 66 setting, you would picture neon lights, a old country house, Pickett fences and wild western backgrounds. Aside from the original Disney typeface for the signature logo, the font has a bold mix of lowercase and uppercase letters. And the scene has some dark sunset colours to give that movie effect on the animation.







Comedy Central (2010) - Originally a US network, it made an official launch last year in the United Kingdom. These idents are made with 3D animation on the logo, and then edited with Green Screen to make it look like it's falling, landing or destroying parts of Britain. although it may be irrelevant to what the channel is about, or what target audience it's aiming, the red and black color of the logo blends well with the clear white typeface, while the graphics are visible over the real life backgrounds, and animated at at steady speed, even if the idents are running at approximately 10 seconds each.

Ident Storyboard

Since most popular video games as old/retro games, I've decided to name the channel for my ident "Retro". The characters for the ident are based off their original game sources: "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Pac Man", "Bubble Bobble" and "Pokémon".

In the original sequence, Sonic starts off by running on the screen, and finally curls into his Spin dash movement. While spinning, Sonic changes colour, from blue to white, into a power pellet. Pac Man later enters, and goes sides to side of the stage, eating the pellet on 3^rd entry and exit.

The scene cuts to a cherry, which Pac Man approaches towards, until a bubble comes and traps Pac Man inside. While he floats away, we see Bub (or Bob) who blew the bubble, and steals the cherry on screen. Suddenly, a Pikachu jumps in; Bub looks upwards and takes a step backwards to avoid getting caught from landing. The Pikachu does a thunderbolt attack on Bub, causing Bub to die and disappear. Finally, a Pokéball is thrown and captures Pikachu inside. The Pokéball forms the letter O for the Retro logo, while the other letters appear as LED lights.

 

After showing the storyboard in my presentation, it was suggested to skip Sonic at the beginning and go straight to Pac Man first.  However, I thought   this made a huge improved for the animation later in production.